Automatic segmentation variability estimation with segmentation priors

Purpose: Segmentations produced manually by experts or by algorithms are subject to variability, as they depend on many factors, e.g., the structure of interest, the resolution, contrast and quality of the images, and the expert experience or the algorithmic method. To properly assess the quality of these segmentations, it is thus essential to quantify their variability. However, obtaining reference variability ground truth requires several observers to manually delineate structures, which is time-consuming and impractical.